Quote: “There’s no vaccine against what threatens us as a community. Every generation needs to be taught anew.”

Morris Casuto is talking about his life’s work, the fight against hate and prejudice, and how it gets depressing sometimes because those are weeds that never stop sprouting.

“But that doesn’t mean we stop pushing,” he said, his cadence sermon-like. “Pushing to be not only who we want to be, but who we can be.”

Then he cocks his head to one side and asks, “Did you hear that? ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ was playing in the background.”

Classic Casuto: climbing up on his high horse and then knocking himself off it, usually with a joke. Taking his work seriously, but not himself. Laughing to mask the pain.

For 37 years he’s been San Diego’s go-to person on bigotry, a chronicler of neo-Nazis, a condemner of extremists, a trainer of hate-crimes investigators.

That’s made the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League a regular presence in the media — and the target of bomb threats and painted swastikas. He’s worn a bulletproof vest, had to learn to work and live behind always-locked doors. The police from time to time have parked in front of his University City home.

“It’s been an interesting life,” he said.

Been, past tense. What the racists could never make him do he’s doing himself: stepping down from his post, at the end of the month.

“It’s time to give someone else the opportunity to dream,” he said, “because that’s what this job is, dreaming that the community can be a safer, better place in part because of your efforts.”

Wait for it — nothing. No joke at his own expense this time. He means that stuff about making the community a better place, a more understanding place. Always has.

It’s why he’s attended Ku Klux Klan rallies. It’s why, even though he’s Jewish, he met with the pope and loves Christmas music. It’s why he studies military history even as he promotes peace.

It’s what’s kept him going for almost four decades.

OK, now he tells a joke.

A guy who’s facing execution makes a bargain with the king: Let me live another year and I’ll teach your horse to talk.

The other inmates scoff at him, but he reasons that a lot could change in a year. The horse could die. The king could die. He could die. “And who knows? I could teach that horse to talk.”

Casuto’s eyes dance behind his glasses. “I like to think that’s the kind of optimist I am,” he said.

Never presume

In an increasingly polarized nation, people stake out ideological positions early, fire off their potshots quickly, refuse to give ground.

Casuto isn’t like that, and that’s befuddled people. He doesn’t fit the stereotype of the civil-rights mouthpiece.

Oh, there have been the obvious responses. Someone defaces a synagogue with swastikas and you know what Casuto will say before he says it. Tom Metzger, leader of White Aryan Resistance, runs for Congress? A no-brainer.

But there was the time in Santee when Jewish theatergoers complained about the word “kikes” in the Pulitzer-prize winning play “The Subject Was Roses.” In response, a local production company edited the script, which Casuto criticized publicly as a bad idea. Censorship was more offensive to him than the word.

“We never presume that someone is anti-Semitic or a bigot or racist,” he said. “One shouldn’t be too fast to throw those kinds of terms on people.”

So he worked behind the scenes a lot, on the phone, in meetings. Sometimes it was enough just to let someone teetering on the edge of discrimination know they were being watched. Sometimes a problem was just a misunderstanding, like the elementary schoolteacher who read a story in class about St. Nicholas’ slave without realizing how hurtful it was to an African-American student.

“He’s very good at analyzing situations and looking at how to de-escalate them,” said Doreen, his wife of 40 years. “A lot of the time, it’s not a matter of him correcting a situation but teaching people how to correct it on their own.”

Casuto was contacted once by a Jewish couple who thought their plans to adopt a boy were being scuttled because of their faith. Casuto made a couple of calls, urged them to apply for adoption again.

Years later, the couple came up to him at an event. He didn’t recognize them, so they reminded him of their dilemma. “How did that work out?” he asked.

They pointed to a boy accompanying them. “Meet our son.”

Tears of a clown

Casuto on how he hopes to be remembered: “As someone who did not inflict pain gratuitously. Someone who really cared about people, helped them achieve their goals. And as someone who could tell a really good joke.”

Humor, he said, disarms people, especially in the tense situations he routinely wades into. It takes the edge off. But, he admits, it also masks the “abiding sadness” he feels about some of the things he’s seen, the kids who wind up in hate groups and attack someone because of the color of their skin or their sexual orientation.

“People turn to violence when they are afraid, when they feel disrespected, when they see no future,” he said. “What does that tell us about our society that we allow children to feel that way so early in their lives?”

He thinks things have gotten better since he arrived in 1973, when San Diego County was the stomping ground for several nationally known bigots. Under his direction, the ADL developed a hate-crime registry, tolerance training in juvenile hall, interfaith workshops, educational programs.

“Did it do any good?” he asks. “You don’t always know.”

And sometimes you do. Today, the ADL is hosting a farewell dinner for Casuto. Some 500 people are expected. The number is surprising to him, touching. You can see it in his eyes, at least for a moment.

“It’s amazing,” he said, “how many people want to make sure I’m really going.”